done in the name of Browne, he signed it again for James Browne. I cannot see what difference it can make as to the order in which the names stand.'

Thus far the case is certainly quite clear of the least doubt, and advances no such doctrine as is to be found in the note complained of, and in some other elementary writers, and arguments of counsel interested to impugn the rule.

But we have yet to cite the opinion of the third judge, Grose, which I admit advances the doctrine stated in the note, and which I have been endeavoring to show is not the decision of the court in the case of Wilks v. Back. Grose stated the position in words; but it is quite clear that it was not his intention so to do. It was a careless expression, the full force of which did not occur to him. I infer this, first, From the fact that the decision of the court establishes a contrary doctrine from the mere obitur dictum of Mr. Justice Grose. Secondly, The marginal note clearly shows that no such doctrine was so understood by the reporter. Thirdly, Mr. Justice Grose himself says the bond must be executed by Browne as well as Wilks, and therefore he must have meant that under all the facts and circumstances of the case before him, the bond was well executed by Wilks the attorney. He could not have meant that the mere signature, Mathias Wilks, attorney for James Browne, is equivalent to James Browne by his attorney, Mathias Wilks, because this would be deciding on a case not before the court. All the other judges state the facts with minute care; Grose is obviously less careful, but did not mean to strike out a doctrine different from his brethren, and not called for by the facts of the case. Fourthly, and lastly, I am of this opinion because all subsequent cases contradict Grose's gratis dictum, and take the decision of that case as fully establishing the rule, in all the strictness in which it has been ever maintained; and I may add that the error I have endeavored to point out is by no means universal. The best authors state the point decided in this case from 2 East, as I now represent it. Vide Paley on Agency, 153, 154, and the learned American editor of Comyns's Dig. vol. 1, 781, note.

The truth is that those who have so erroneously stated the case of Wilks v. Back, have repeated the hasty obiter dictum of Mr. Justice Grose, instead of the decision of the court, and one inaccurate writer has copied from another.

Summary.

On the entire case, therefore, which I have perhaps, so tediously considered, I am of opinion the plaintiff in this cause, is entitled to recover,

1st, Because Young and Blake had no power to convey. 2d. Because there was a covenant only, on the part of John Mullins for him to convey.

3d. Because no grant was intended, and if one had been. contemplated, it would have been inoperative as a source of title to the defendants, as it would have been the grant of a naked possibility.

4th. That if Young and Blake had power to convey, still they have not so conveyed as to divest the estate from the plaintiff, having failed to execute the deed in the name of John Mullins, which, as attorneys of Mullins, they were legally bound to do.

ART. VI.-HOFFMAN'S LEGAL OUTLINES.

Legal Outlines, being the Substance of a Course of Lectures now delivering in the University of Maryland. By DAVID HOFFMAN. Indocti discant, ament meminisse periti. In three Volumes. Vol. I. Baltimore. Edward J. Coale. 1829. pp. 626.

EVERY author in making a book, and so every speaker in addressing an assembly, supposes his readers or auditors to have made certain acquisitions of knowledge. They are presumed, in the first place, to understand the language used; and this, in the case of a science in regard to which the student's mind is a complete tabula rasa, as in the elements of geometry, for instance, where he is presumed not to know what is a straight line, a point, an angle, or a plane. These are all explained to him in preliminary definitions. The only preparatory stock of knowledge required of him, is, that of the meaning of the small number of words used in the definitions and demonstrations, without being previously defined. But in most treatises, public discourses, and private conversations, the reader or hearer is presumed to have a pretty large stock of knowledge, and it is a point of some delicacy of discrimination

to determine what may be presumed to be known, and what should be explained by an instructer who undertakes to teach an art or science. One obvious rule in this case is, not to introduce any thing which may not explain, illustrate, or in some way throw light upon, or facilitate the understanding of, the general subject in hand. In the flood of works with which the press inundates the world in the present times, this rule is of great importance. In the old times, readers were supposed to be more at leisure, and it was thought to be an essential part of a finished treatise, that it should be introduced by some elegantly written discussion, which had little or no connexion with the subject. Thus Cicero's Treatise de Republica is prefaced by a comparison of active and contemplative life, and Sallust introduces his account of the war of Jugurtha with an essay upon the comparative glory of carrying on a war or writing a history of it. These preludes were written in the most finished style, being a sort of ceremonious introduction of the author to his readers, whose attention was thus to be conciliated to what was to be said upon the actual subject. Modern works in law, and on all other subjects, abound in introductions sufficiently remote from the subject. Molloy commences his book on maritime law with the remarks upon the great kindness of Providence in furnishing man with wisdom,' &c. so that he could build a ship, raise a fort, and make bread or cloth.' And even Mr. Park, who is a rigid practical lawyer, begins his treatise on Insurance by an introductory discourse on marine commerce.

Something in the nature of an introduction is indeed very proper, and often no less useful than ornamental, not only in every written treatise or public discourse, but even in an ordinary conversation. We always begin at some distance, greater or less from the main subject, but it is esteemed a mark of good taste and good sense to begin with something directly connected with and leading to it. A great part of this volume of Professor Hoffman is preliminary to his real subject, the law; and the first question that presents itself, in opening the volume, is, as to the connexion of these various subjects, which fill so large a space, with the great subject to be explained and illustrated. In regard to this question, we cannot but think that he has taken too wide a range. That he himself is of this opinion we infer from what he says in his introduction, where he gives us a reason for publishing the volume sepa

rately from the two others, which are to complete his entire work, that it has been induced by the consideration that most of its topics are a little too metaphysical to make their due impression through mere oral delivery; besides which the remaining titles are gradually becoming sufficiently extensive to occupy all the time which can at present be allotted to the duties of the chair.' We hardly think that the subjects themselves of this volume are liable to the first of these objections, since, notwithstanding the metaphysical character of some of them, they are certainly as capable of being made the subjects of lectures, which might engage the attention of young students, as any part of the municipal law. That they are not very directly connected with the study of the law seems to be thus taken for granted by the author, as he proposes to omit this part in delivering his lectures to his classes. It is true he proposes that the students shall read this part, but they are no more likely to read his volume, perhaps, than they would have been to read the other numerous works upon the same subjects.

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But our readers will form a more just opinion of the volume if we follow the author through the various topics with which it is filled, the first of which are the origin and nature of man, and his physical and moral constitution.' We regret that this lecture was introduced, for the world has been flooded with general disquisitions on mind, matter organised and unorganised, life, instinct, sensation, intelligence, animals, vegetables;' and if an author should think he could enter these wandering mazes without perplexing himself and his readers, one of the last places of making such an experiment, it seems to us, would be in a practical treatise on the law. When the student enters upon his career of legal studies, panting and on fire to train and equip himself for the actual bona fide conflicts of the forum, it is really discouraging to him to be conducted to some cavity of a rock, to study the properties of the sea-anemone, or be thrown into an abstraction on the subject of Des Cartes's theory that there is no mutual action and reaction between the mind and the body, or to be confounded with the old question of the moral liberty and free-agency of man, with which he has already been severely exercised by his tutors in moral philosophy and metaphysics.

The next lecture, which treats 'of man in a state of nature,' has a more direct bearing upon the subject of law. A very

useful inquiry to the student is here instituted, namely, what is a state of nature?' Though we do not often meet with this phrase in municipal law, yet even there it is sometimes used, and in the treatises on natural and national law, is often repeated. It is therefore well worth while for the student to attach some definite meaning to it, and to settle in his mind its different uses, from which will result one considerable advantage at least, for he will readily perceive that in a great many pages where writers are talking of a state of nature, they use words without any precise ideas, and so he saves himself the trouble of puzzling himself about their meaning. Now the state of nature and individual independence, as distinguished from a state of society, mutual dependence, and contracted obligations, is one in which the whole human race never has been, and never can be, placed, as Mr. Hoffman very justly remarks, for these social bonds fix themselves upon men from the time of their birth, and would do so to the first offspring of the solitary couple who constituted all the inhabitants of the earth. But still nations, not bound to each other by treaties or compacts, are in a state of nature, and so thousands of individuals have met, since time was, who were, in respect to each other, in a state of nature, being beyond all civil jurisdiction and bound by no obligations in their conduct towards each other, except those arising out of the moral constitution of man, or what is strictly the law of nature. Though nations, in respect to each other, are therefore in a state of nature as far as laws are concerned, and though individuals have often found themselves in this state in respect to each other, yet when we speak of all men as having at some time been in this state, it is so far entirely an imaginary one.

This lecture includes the consideration of Hobbes's theory of the natural hostility of the human race to each other, which Mr. Hoffman combats, as might be expected, for it attacks the foundation of all morals and laws. It resolves all rights into that of the strongest. The foundation upon which that philosopher builds his theory, is certainly a very flimsy one, nor can we perceive that the opposite one is more satisfactory. Hobbes says men are naturally at war; the opposite theory assumes them to be at peace. Now it is evident that they would be naturally at war or peace, according to their dispositions and motives, and to suppose a uniformity in this respect, all the world over, if government should be at once abolished, all